LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell
Read LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell Online
Authors: Adam Haeder; Stephen Addison Schneiter; Bruno Gomes Pessanha; James Stanger
Tags: #Reference:Computers
Andy Oram
Copyright © 2010 James Stanger, Adam Haeder, Stephen Schneiter, and Bruno Gomes Pessanha
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Certification in a Nutshell
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contained herein.
Certification of professionals is a time-honored tradition in many
fields, including medicine and law. As small computer systems and networks
proliferated over the last decade, Novell and Microsoft produced extremely
popular technical certification products for their respective operating
system and network technologies. These two programs are often cited as
having popularized a certification market for products that had previously
been highly specialized and relatively rare. These programs have become so
popular that a huge training and preparation industry has formed to service
a constant stream of new certification candidates.
Certification programs, offered by vendors such as Sun and
Hewlett-Packard, have existed in the Unix world for some time. However,
since Solaris and HP-UX aren’t commodity products, those programs don’t draw
the crowds that the PC platform does. Linux,
however, is different. Linux is both a commodity operating
system and is PC-based, and its popularity continues to grow at a rapid
pace. As Linux deployment increases, so too does the demand for qualified
and certified Linux system administrators.
A number of programs such as the
Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the
Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) program, and CompTIA’s
Linux+ have formed to service this new market. Each of these programs seeks
to provide objective measurements of a Linux administrator’s skills, but
they approach the problem in different ways.
The RHCE program requires that candidates pass multiple exam modules,
including two hands-on and one written, whose goals are to certify
individuals to use their brand of products. The Linux+ program requires a
single exam and is focused at entry-level candidates with six months’
experience. LPI’s program is a job-based certification and currently
consists of three levels; this book focuses on the most basic level.
The
Linux Professional
Institute
is a nonprofit organization formed with the single goal
of providing a standard for vendor-neutral certification. This goal is
being achieved by certifying Linux administrators through a modified open
source development process. LPI seeks input from the public for its exam
Objectives and questions, and anyone is welcome to participate. It has
both paid and volunteer staff and receives funding from some major names
in the computer industry. The result is a vendor-neutral, publicly
developed program that is offered at a reasonable price.
LPI currently organizes its most popular
Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC) series in
three levels. This book covers the LPIC Level 1 Exams 101 and 102.
Level 1 is aimed at junior to midlevel Linux administrators with
about two years of practical system administration experience. The Level 1
candidate should be comfortable with Linux at the command line as well as
capable of performing simple tasks, including system installation and
troubleshooting. Level 1 certification is required prior to obtaining
Level 2 certification status.
All of LPI’s exams are based on a published set of technical
Objectives. These technical Objectives are posted on LPI’s
website and for your convenience printed at the beginning of each chapter
within this book. Each Objective set forth by LPI is
assigned
a numeric weight, which acts as an
indicator of the importance of the Objective. Weights run between 1 and 8,
with higher numbers indicating more importance. An Objective carrying a
weight of 1 can be considered relatively unimportant and isn’t likely to
be covered in much depth on the exam. Objectives with larger weights are
sure to be covered on the exam, so you should study these closely. The
weights of the Objectives are provided at the beginning of each
chapter.
LPI offers its exams through
Pearson VUE
,
Thomson
Prometric
, and at on-site locations at special Linux events, such
as trade shows. Before registering for any of these testing methods, you
need to obtain an LPI ID number by registering directly with LPI. To
obtain your LPI ID, visit
http://www.lpi.org/register.html
. Once
you’ve received your LPI ID, you may continue your registration by
registering with a testing center or special event. You can link to any of
these registration options through
LPI’s
website
.
In Vue and Prometric testing centers, the exams are delivered using
a PC-based automated examination program. As of this writing, the exams
are available in
English
, Japanese,
Chinese (both Traditional and Simplified), German, Spanish, Portuguese,
and French. Exam questions are presented in three different styles:
multiple-choice single-answer, multiple-choice multiple-answer, and
fill-in-the-blank.
However
, the
majority of the questions on the exams are multiple-choice single-answer.
Also, with the multiple-choice questions, the candidate is told exactly
how many answers are correct.
For security purposes, multiple forms of each exam are available at
testing centers to help minimize memorization and brain dumps of exams if
candidates take them multiple times. Due to this, actual question numbers
may vary slightly. LPI’s psychometric team develops these forms and
adjusts the scoring appropriately so all forms are equally difficult. The
scores are between 200 and 800, and passing score is 500.
The primary audience for this book is, of course, candidates seeking
the LPIC certification. These may range from administrators of other
operating systems looking for a Linux certification to complement an MSCE
certification to Unix administrators wary of a growing pool of
Linux-certified job applicants. In any case, this book will help you with
the specific information you require to be successful with the Level 1
Exams. Don’t be fooled, however, as book study will not be enough to pass
your exams. Remember, practice makes perfect!
Due to the breadth of knowledge required by the LPI Objectives and
the book’s one-to-one coverage, it also makes an excellent reference for
skills and methods required for the day-to-day use of Linux. If you have a
basic working understanding of Linux administration, the material in this
book will help fill gaps in your knowledge while at the same time
preparing you for the LPI Exams, should you choose to take them.
This book should also prove to be a valuable introduction for new
Linux users and administrators looking for a broad, detailed introduction
to Linux. Part of the LPI exam-creation process includes a survey of Linux
professionals in the field. The survey results drive much of the content
found on the exams. Therefore, unlike general-purpose introductory Linux
books, all of the information in this book applies directly to running
Linux in the real world.
This book is designed to exactly follow the Topics and Objectives
established by LPI for Level 1. That means that the presentation doesn’t
look like any other Linux book you’ve read. Instead, you can directly
track the LPI Objectives and easily measure your progress as you
prepare.
The book is presented in two parts, one for Exam 101 and the other
for Exam 102. Each part contains chapters dedicated to the LPI Topics, and
each of those sections contains information on all of the Objectives set
forth for the Topic. In addition, each part contains a practice exam (with
answers), review questions and exercises, and a handy highlighter’s index
that can help you review important details.
Each part of this book contains some combination of the following
materials:
- Exam overview
Here you find an introduction to the exam along with details
about the format of the questions.- Study guide
This chapter offers a few tips to prepare for the LPI Exams
and introduces the Objectives contained in the Topic chapters that
follow.- Topic chapters
A separate chapter covers each of the Topic areas on the
exam. These chapters provide background information and in-depth
coverage for each Objective, with
“On the Exam”
(see bottom of
this page) tips dispersed throughout.- Review questions and exercises
This chapter reinforces important study areas with review
questions. The purpose of this section is to provide you with a
series of exercises that can be used on a running Linux system to
give you valuable hands-on experience before you take the
exams.- Practice test
The practice test is designed to be similar in format and
content to the actual LPI Exams. You should be able to attain at
least an 80 percent score on the sample test before attempting the
live exam.- Highlighter’s index
This unique chapter contains highlights and important facts
culled from the Topic chapters. You can use this as review and
reference material prior to taking the actual exams.
This book follows certain typographical conventions:
- Italic
Italic is used to indicate URLs, filenames, directories,
commands, options, system components (such as usernames), and to
highlight comments in examples.Constant WidthUsed to show the contents of files or the output from
commands.Constant Width
BoldUsed in examples and tables to show commands or other text
that should be typed literally by the user.Constant Width ItalicUsed to show arguments and variables that should be replaced
with user-
supplied
values.#, $Used in some examples as the root shell prompt
(#) and as the
user prompt
($) under the
Bourne or Bash shell.
On the Exam
Provides information about areas you should focus on when studying
for the exam.
Indicates a tip, suggestion, or general note.
Indicates a warning or caution.
A final word about syntax: in many cases, the space between an
option and its argument can be omitted. In other cases, the spacing (or
lack of spacing) must be followed strictly. For example,
-wn(no intervening space)
might be interpreted differently from
-wn. It’s important to notice the spacing used in
option syntax.